Accident Cause-Safety-Travel Delay

By this time you've heard that a Cessna Citation airplane on a medical flight went down in Lake Michigan - late afternoon on 6-4-07. All perished. The accident was particularly painful to me since it was a mercy flight and the fact that I was a Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and its successor the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Investigator years ago. My investigation memories are all too clear. The current NTSB Investigators will work painstakingly to find the probable cause, the end result of their work, followed by any and all recommendations to prevent a future accident.
(I must tell you that I have always felt that NTSB's probable cause was a misnomer - that a primary cause should be determined as fact and one that, without question, made the accident inevitable. Contributing causes would then be assessed.)
But aircraft accidents do happen - for all kinds of reasons - and the best way to avoid an accident is to inject any and all safety measures into your operations - all the time. Think safety.
It must begin with flight planning and carry through the entire flight.
Looking at the NTSB preliminary reports of accidents and incidents for May 2007, 47 accidents (two airline incidents) occurred - US and Overseas - with 43 resulting in fatal accidents and 47 fatalities. All accidents involved General Aviation (GA) aircraft operation. As much as I dislike armchair analysis, my past experience tells me that 70% of accident causes will inevitably be pilot-related.
(An analysis of the 2007 aircraft accidents will be made later in the year to determine what we did right and what we did wrong)

We have other problems in aviation, too. Airline travel delays is a hot subject these days. Travelers are getting fed up with the constant delays. Why? There seems to be a multitude of factors, but also an attitude that this is the name of the game by Airlines. Passengers experienced delays in airline flights 75+% of the time in May 2007. Winter weather, unseasonable tornadoes, and thunderstorms were factors - but I suspect that too few and crowded traffic hubs (major departure and arrival points), limited use of direct flight, lack of airline route planning, and lack of trained personnel to handle short-term traffic adjusments were also important factors.
There has to be better planning and coordination of flight operations by the Airlines. Sensible and speedy security procedures would help, too. What are your thoughts on the matter? RS.

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